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| 11 April 2000 - The San Diego Union-Tribune A good investment | Substance abuse treatment pays dividends Alcohol and drug abuse costs San Diego County $1.5 billion a year. Nearly $600 million of that is directly related to crime. Meanwhile, a state study shows that for every $1 dollar spent on substance abuse treatment, taxpayers save $7 in reduced costs for criminal justice, health care and many other social problems for which addiction is the root cause. The study by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Services found that criminal activity by substance abusers declined by two-thirds after treatment. Today, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will consider the first report on a proposed Drug Offender Accountability and Treatment Program, which would expand the county's drug court and treatment projects from pilot programs to a comprehensive system. As the above statistics show, this would be money well spent. The idea for the expansion comes from the supervisors themselves. They directed a study that would take the principles of drug courts, which see only a few hundred arrestees, and apply them to the county's entire criminal justice system. Instead of sending just a few people to drug court who get arrested for drug crimes, the county would begin assessing everybody who comes through the system for substance abuse. If they are found to have a substance abuse problem, they would be mandated to undergo treatment and testing, in addition to whatever criminal penalties they might receive. The county's staff is aggressively seeking grants and other funding from the state and federal governments to pay for the assessments, drug courts, treatment and other parts of the accountability program. But the Board of Supervisors eventually will have to come up with some money of its own. No one expects the supervisors to sign a blank check. Preliminary suggestions on the level of county funding seem reasonable – a couple million dollars annually. These costs must be scrutinized, but they would include matching local dollars to state and federal funds. This would help pay for an integrated system that includes expanding some very successful pilot programs already in place, such as substance abuse assessment of arrestees, drug testing, drug courts, treatment for probationers and strict monitoring of those in treatment. One new program would be substance abuse treatment in jail. Right now, San Diego County has no structured treatment programs in its jails, even though San Diego has one of the highest percentages of arrestees testing positive for drug use of any major American city. Staff members from various county offices – plus the Superior Court, the Sheriff's Department, the District Attorney's Office, the Probation Department, the Public Defender's Office and the San Diego Association of Governments -have done a very good job so far on this comprehensive proposal. If brought to fruition, it could become the bench mark for county criminal justice across the nation. More important, it would reduce crime in San Diego County and save us some of that $1.5 billion in costs from substance abuse. The Board of Supervisors should heartily endorse this first step. Article Snapshot (21K) |
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